Newbie here. Just trying to read this DRM ebook I got in my Windows computer in Linux. Heard all kinds of wacky-sounding ways of doing it, but getting Oracle VM Virtual Box or VMWare Player seemed reasonable. I was reading however that VMWare Player requires a lot of space and my computer is only 1.2 GB memory and only like 36GB Hardrive. Any suggestions which of the two (if either) would be good for me. Running Xubuntu 13.10. Thanks. P.S. And I would only be reading the book on the computer. No other programs running simaltaneously.

I would go with vmware if those are the only 2 you are considering.

Using virtualbox is like throwing away 50% of your resources that could be better used with the more efficient vmware player.

If you want to stay open source, kvm is the way to go.

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I've run both and prefer vbox. I've never had resource issues as previously stated.

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True that you may not have noticed. Try some real number crunching then do a benchmark, what you find may surprise you, alternatively, check out the phoronix benchmarks where they did the crunching. You willsoon notice vmware xen and kvm are much closer to baremetal performance than vbox

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Try qemu, it can use some of your swap file. The other two are limited to actual ram.

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VirtualBox/VMware Player:
Would pick VirtualBox on a laptop or PC that's not going to be powered on 24/7.
Had my laptop running Fedora with Win7 in running under VirtualBox.

Also ran KVM for a while:
Would use KVM for a PC/server that would be on 24/7.

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If you are concerned with licensing, I think Virtualbox gives you a lot fewer restrictions than VMware player

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Thanks all.Perhaps I should have been more specific why I'm considering Oracle Virtual Box and VMWare Player etc. In Windows (I'm a writer making my own ebooks) my process was MS Office Word 2003 to make a .doc. Then save it there as "web page filtered" to make an .html. Put the .html in Sigil to make a .epub. Then that's fine for the Nooks etc. But for Kindle I put the .epub in Kindle Previewer to make a .mobi. I haven't found equivalent programs in Ubuntu so it's like, how am I going to do all this stuff in Linux? People have suggested Wine patching over and all kinds of super complicated ways of getting Sigil etc. But for a non-techie like me I thought Oracle Virtual Box or VMWare Player would work better. And are they free? And I didn't even know open source things existed in this area. Any more suggestions considering this additional info? Thanks much!

If all you really want to do is E-book creation, then load Calibre for Linux, and you're done. It already DOES conversions to epub and mobi, and Libreoffice can easily open Word 2003 files, and save them as HTML, which can then be imported to Calibre, and exported as ebooks.

It's always better to state your end goal, rather than seeking a hugely complicated workaround, because all you know is Windows. Chances are, there are Linux programs that do exactly what you're looking to do already, so rather than thinking about how to force a Windows program to run, look for the Linux equivalent.

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You should be able to use vmware player free for something like that for free, and I would choose that over Virtualbox. I think it's a bit easier and also more lightweight.

(by the way... You can always try both I think both are not hard to use at all. And see which one you like better. )

Good luck!!!

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Thanks TBone, I've been doing just what you've suggested (finding Linux equivalents and superiors!) and calming down. I already have Calibre and LibreOffice and Calibre's ebook editor. I'm thinking I can go Linux all the way. Appreciate it.

Seeing your system specs (only 1.2GB of RAM and 36GB of harddisk space) I assume that you use an older computer. Depending on which CPU is in that machine it is likely that none of the VMs will run a Windows OS with reasonable speed. Please give us an update about your CPU.
If your CPU does not support hardware virtualization it really comes down to three solutions, from which I only two can recommend if this is for your work:
- Install Windows and go with your usual workflow.
- As recommended by TB0ne, try to find native Linux solutions that fit your workflow.
- Unrecommended: Try to get your Windows software working with Wine.

If possible I would always recommend the second solution, but there are situations (I don't know much about creating eBooks) where the first solution is the only reasonable one.

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How do you read the book in Windows? What app?

Thanks. I've just added to the memory so that this computer is now 2GB. Not sure what you're asking about the cpu usage. Here's a screenshot of what the task manager shows right now.

And I've turned this computer 100% Xubuntu. The old computer was XP so I don't want that, but is there a way to get,say, Windows 7 on this computer? Thanks.

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Usually ADE 2.0. Sometimes Sony Reader Library. Sometimes Kindle for PC.